Wolf Sirens Night Fall: What Rises Must Fall (Wolf Sirens #3)

by Tina Smith

  When a few weeks passed after Lila’s disappearance, with no direct word from anyone, Jackson felt he was to blame and all the while he knew something was brewing. The time he had left with his human family was as precarious and limited as ever before, menacingly drawing to a slow end.

  His little brother let him into the house on nights when he was locked out. He would begrudgingly nudge the latch open as if for an imaginary visitor. He no longer looked at his brother, in a display of disappointment and disgust at his deliberate disobedience which hurt their parents so. Jackson was a ghost in his own home already.

  He wasn’t accustomed to neglect; he dropped out and spent time in the cabin alone during the day. Once or twice he had smelt Reid there and another bitch, though the scent was different and he realized it was Cres, that strange half wolf, half deadly hunter zest which should have repelled Reid also. It was inevitable he would head out to the pack, but he needed time.

  Jackson had learnt his lesson about spying. The last time he had done it, Reid had bitten him and his life as he knew it had been taken in one day. He had died and he remembered the bite, the sting - even though he never mentioned it to Reid. He didn’t relent to impulse so easily any longer, though it was probably more depression than once bitten twice shy which compelled him to hide out these last two weeks. Also he knew a time was coming closer when he would be a changed creature, completely wolf, once he joined the Cult pack in Key Inlet for good. Then everything would be different.

  One particularly dim day he crawled into his bed with a razor. With heaving sobs he grimaced like a coward and pushed the point of the blade into his skin, running it up one wrist with two burning strokes. He repeated speedily on the other with a shallower scratch. He was bleeding to death quickly and it was to kill himself perhaps, but also to feel alive.

  As quickly as blood seeped and pooled from the lines in his pale olive skin and stained the sheets crimson, the wounds began to heal, evaporating into smooth skin. Soon, the only evidence of brutality and desperation was the thick blood stains- like clouds on the sheets, which to his mother’s horror stained the mattress. She grabbed him and searched him for cuts, injuries, and scrapes frantically, when she found the stains weeks later, changing the sheets.

  “Mum, mum!” he grunted. She proceeded to then pull up his shirt in search of the offending wound. He protested loudly when she didn’t stop. “Mum!”

  Her violent reaction and tears scared him, and she began to beat his chest. It tore at his heart until he felt her begin to flail and he held her against him. With her fists rolled up, she bawled like a grieving parent crying for a deceased child – only that child held her, as she mourned him fiercely. They were certain he was taking steroids and perhaps now something worse. He couldn’t take it much longer.

  In the end, when she offered him the excuse of it being from a nosebleed, he had sorrowfully agreed that’s what it was; despite the fact he wished for a moment in time that he could tell her the truth. He wished the burden of the secret would kill him, weigh him down into the dirt for the grief he caused them.

  He knew it was better for them all round if he left for the “Cult” soon. Never to have his life even resemble normalcy ever again. Like a kid leaving for college, but he was leaving to become a stranger. It would be more like a death than a transition.

  And worse still, he would far outlive them, watch them die one by one. He couldn’t stand it, he couldn’t change it, and it seemed to push more pain and discomfort on them all for him to deny it. He couldn’t help what he was and he couldn’t hide it, not well enough. Certainly not much longer, and relations with his step-father were almost irreparable.

  No matter how much he wished it away, it troubled him, took him over at night and he woke up in hell every day. Lila was the only hunter he knew who could end it for him, but she was incognito. Cres was almost converted to the wolf side and from what he could tell she posed no threat – not even if he asked her would it have ended it. He knew Reid wouldn’t have any part of it. Though who knew if he even cared anymore.

  He had to drag the blood blotched mattress out into the cement dominated court yard at the back of the house, that his step-father had fashioned as some sort of homage to the homeland – one he had never seen.

  It was there in the sun with the hose spouting water like a fountain, scrub brush in hand, that Narine and her female companion Angele, complete with limp, finally located him.

  She was puzzled as to what exactly he was doing, but having taken too long to find him Narine was anxious to unload her companion and get back.

  “I think it’s best if you stay here, Angele, and make friends with Jackson – don’t turn up back at the compound – until you are called for.” The voice was sweet and authoritative, and Angele knew not to disobey. She had felt the bite behind those soft words before quite literally.

  “The pack is dependent on your loyal work.” Narine looked at her face with a motherly tenderness; her fingers stroked her cheek. “We are all so proud of you.” She kissed her cheek and fled.

  16. The Hand that Feeds

  “Hey Jackson.”

  He turned and almost dropped the hose. Appearing in front of him was a shapely short girl with thin dark lips, pale face and tanned limbs. Her cheeks glowed an unnatural dazzling peach and her eyes were as blue as little round sapphires.

  She giggled at his lack of reply. “What you doing?”

  He positioned himself so his body obscured the stains.

  She bent herself to look around him and with a bemused look said, “Had an accident?”

  He stiffened. “Who are you?”

  “Angele,” she replied, swaying casually and giving an awkward shrug.

  They looked at each other, him too shocked and embarrassed to respond or to know what to say.

  Unsure of how to broach the obvious fact that she knew what he was – and that she was one too— they stood. The water from the hose splashed the cement.

  She raised a pale brow. “I’m well,” she beamed teasingly - answering an unasked question. She wasn’t sure if he would recognize her, he hadn’t seemed to. She took off into the trees and sprang over the high back wooden fence like a lithe animal, a fence that a man twice her height would have difficulty climbing.

  He stood there gob smacked with the hose still running over the cement and spilling into the thin strip of grass that made up the back lawn. All he could think was, ‘What was that?’

  He puzzled over the blonde in silence, and after dinner, he dropped his plate on the sink. Exiting the sliding back door, he jumped the fence as she had done hours before, feeling the difficulty of it for himself, and confirmed with a thud that she was indeed not human.

  He smelt the fence for traces of her that may have lingered. He heard his mother call out through the door but ignored her and ran off into the scrub behind the row of houses in his street. He kept to human form, but by 9pm he had circled the area and decided to head to the river. Transformed, he lapped up the water, quenching a dry mouth from the swollen bank.

  It was pretty secluded there, normally just snakes and birds, frogs, eels in the water, crickets and the breeze in the leaves. He found no footprints and spent the rest of the night scouring the areas across the river and farmland, though he knew she would be daft to be there. He considered that she might be new.

  She was perhaps in a house like him; maybe she would come back again? Were there others with her? Who were they? Who had bitten her, and was she from the Cult? Why hadn’t she said much?

  Despite the myriad of questions, his stomach growled and he was spent. It dawned on him that he wouldn’t be welcome at home and he made for the cabin. It occurred to him as he approached that the She Wolf may have been with Sam, staying at the cabin. They would have to be recently arrived; he had been there only yesterday.

  When he entered via the hidden key, the house was silent. He sensed the young bitch was there though and he inhaled deeply. He hesitated to move for a moment
and then he caught it - a perfume – the female was there and he decided she wasn’t a threat. He was stronger anyway, so he pretended not to notice in case she watched, and he hung the key on the hook in the kitchen by the phone. As usual, he began micro-waving pop tarts, the only food left in the freezer-thanks to Reid and the half breed bitch, he thought annoyed. He sniffed the air, she was near still, and she almost smelt warm. But was she playing with him?

  He noted Reid’s scent but it was faint and Cresida's odour - older still, damp and sharp. He needed some sleep and settled on the white leather couch, feet up on the armrest. He was so incensed he couldn’t sleep, so he feigned it.

  Frustrated, after several moments he called out, “Come out, come out wherever you are?” But it was quiet.

  He sat up, he was hot from running all night in the balmy weather, and the swimming pool was half covered with a blue tarpaulin that was laden with dirt, bugs and leaves. He dove in and through the cover of trees she watched him from afar, well hidden in the darkness. He reminded her of Sky, he had the same manner.

  She was both frightened and intrigued by him. This made her mission all the easier, all the more pleasurable. Prior to seeing him, thoughts of contempt had plagued her but had now turned to enthusiasm to know him. She wanted to bring him into the Cult pack at Key Inlet when she had finished.

  This mission would be easy, even Narine would be impressed, she thought, with optimism. And she was going to do it well, and if that meant following him for a few days first, then so be it. Angele was almost elated. This boy would be hers if she played her cards right, and she squashed the feeling of rejection she had felt from Paws and Sky and the disinterest from Blair. Although Paws had seemed more interested again lately. She knew in her heart that was why Narine had transferred her.

  She had learnt a few things and wasn’t above using them. Her complexion was creamy and blemish free, unlike her memories of being a kid when she had been pimple faced and stretch mark ridden. She had baked herself in the sun to cover them. She had selected a dress for the mission.

  Narine hadn’t asked why, which led Angele to believe she perhaps approved. Though Narine had ousted her from her spot in the pack and then maimed her, she had been the only one to show her kindness and affection since. Angele had had little affection in her life. She knew Narine’s affections were shallow but she couldn’t help but accept them.

  She had been saddened that her mother had died of kidney cancer and that her stepfather was an abuser, and that she had been left in charge of her step sisters and half-brother; she was just glad to be away from it. And for her, she was in heaven now, transported away from it, and she would dance on her stepfather’s grave for a thousand years after he was dead.

  But the pack had begun to treat her much the same as she had been treated before she was bitten, before a life with Paws. This mission was her opportunity to change it. If she did good, Narine would treat her like she treated the others, and as an aside bonus she would have a boy to give her the affection she craved, because she couldn’t be rejected anymore.

  In the morning Jackson awoke, he hadn’t slept well. He had a strange feeling she was watching him. As the sun rose through the open glass door he felt more at peace and slept like a lamb, finally relaxed. But he woke with a start, as though his body sensed her there, but ahead of him was nothing but the empty cabin. Perhaps she had been there gazing into his upturned face. He went back to sleep.

  He awoke an hour later, after dreaming of his parents and how he probably wouldn’t be allowed back anymore as he had pushed his luck and disobeyed ultimatum after ultimatum. He thought of her face and recalled waking with a start in the night, where he imagined he had seen her for a second. He was going to make camp here at the cabin until she appeared – or didn’t, and perhaps he had hallucinated her.

  There was one problem now, apart from the mystery of the enchanting, disappearing She Wolf. His mind then turned to the immediate. He had to eat and the last of the frozen food was either expired or gone – between Jackson, Reid and Cresida raiding it regularly. He poked the ice logged frozen peas on the bottom of the freezer. The cash stash was dwindling and he found there was only a few hundred dollars in notes left in a tin under the basement stairs which was kept for emergencies. Food could always be found and he was a decent hunter, rabbit was an easy meal in these parts – and free.

  He decided if the girl didn’t show that he was going to head for the Cult soon anyway – with any luck she would also be there. But it perplexed him why she had shown herself to him in the backyard – could she smell his blood? Was she attracted by the familiar wolf smell? Maybe he would go and ask Cres what she thought or Reid – though he realized he was pissed with Reid for not being there at all lately.

  And, he didn’t trust Cres. In the back of his mind he wanted to keep this to himself, besides Cresida was still part hunter – not to be trusted and at the same time not enough huntress to shoot him dead. He pondered as he headed for the deep woods; daylight wasn’t a smart time to go out hunting, but he was starved and craving protein, and in particular, warm blood.

  Once he had reached the trees, he listened for danger and transformed lurching juvenilely, unable to shed his human skin with grace. In the deeper forest he paused, sure he was being followed by the lone She Wolf – perhaps she was a spy of sorts. She was not even downwind; her female scent brushed his nose though he hadn’t so much as sensed her before, not like now.

  He pretended to not notice the crackle of fallen leaves, he was going to play her at her own game. This was now a chase. He pretended to take off after something and suddenly headed fast through the undergrowth dodging trees. She chased him, but he was too quick. She circled about looking for any trace of him, and then suddenly he was on her. He pounced from side on, pushing the wind out of her. She struggled, but he had her pinned. Growling too loud for day light hours he pressed his snarl into her neck so she felt his wet teeth pressing her flesh firmly through her coat.

  In surrender she whined, she had never been a good fighter and her limp impeded her more psychologically than physically. She had no intention of fighting him, even just to win. She was by nature a very submissive bitch, and besides, boys liked that. She took a gasp and phased. Adrenalin and caution caused him to delay his retreat from atop her small body; his black grey fur stood on end as he began to ease off. He stood back, arched, growling over her and then shook, trembled and phased into a man who now stood leaning over a naked girl he had never met, except for a few minutes the day before. She was even lovelier when the curvature of her back was exposed.

  She sat up slowly with her hands across her small breasts, he crouching in front of her.

  “Well, this is awkward,” he suggested, suppressing an admiring gaze and equally telling smile as he used his hands to cover his man parts.

  She pressed her lips together and shrugged the same way she had yesterday, only then her collarbone was modestly covered by the straps of a floral dress.

  “Where’s your dress?”

  She was impressed he had remembered what she had been wearing.

  She swallowed and said in her bubbly childlike voice, “Way back there,” nodding in the direction they had come.

  He stared at her again, unsure of what to say, not wanting to leave her in case she should disappear again.

  “I’ll get it,” she offered, attempting to move.

  “No, no, I’ll get it just…please stay here.” He urged her with one hand, palm out. It seemed her suitor was keen to impress and not lose her again. She smiled behind him and stuffed it down.

  Jackson got up and formed as he strode off into the trees retrieving his own clothes. He hurriedly found her dress hung on a tree; he inhaled the scent on his way back. He discovered she hadn’t waited but followed him after he had left, as he stumbled upon her, making his way back. He handed her the dress and turned in an act of modesty; he could hear her silent breathy giggle as she slipped it on behind him but he didn’t
turn until she announced, “You can turn around now.”

  “I was scared you’d phase and take off,” he said, still not facing her.

  “Why?”

  He turned. “I’d never see you again.” As he laid eyes on her, he felt a pang as he became painfully aware his heart was beating rapidly, despite the fact they were standing still.

  “Are you hungry?” It was the only thing he could think of and it burst from his lips.

  “Sure,” she said easily, with a playful smile.

  He took her hand in his and they ran on for a bit; then he held his finger to his lips, phased, and flew out full pelt darting after a rabbit. He expected her, delicate as she seemed, to wait, but when he realized she too had phased and was keeping pace with him they bounded after the rabbit. When he captured it, they each tore at its flesh in stringy pieces of raw, pink bloody meat, nuzzling inside its carcass for the bones and licking their muzzles when they were done.

  He was surprised she seemed to follow him, and all day they chased rabbits and prey in the underbrush. Angele hadn’t known such gentleness; the pack she was from was civilized but brutal in its own way; that was how she saw it anyway. She had been used and abused, hurt for entertainment and thrown crashing to the bottom of the pack hierarchy injured. This was her way back to the pack rung, or at least it would endear her to them and give her an identity back.

  As his avatar, the awkward embarrassment Jackson felt in human form was obliterated. They played affectionately, nuzzling each other and tumbling in the damp summer leaves on the floor of the bush under the cover of tall trees, bellies full of fresh meat and for a time they had not a worry in the world. He didn’t remember her from school; she wasn’t surprised because she had changed - even she knew it. She was curvier, her skin had cleared and her eyes were almost a different colour completely.